The Dictator Pope hit our Kindles (it’s not yet in hard copy) just in time for Christmas. I can tell you, after a quick read, that it’s the best Vatican expose since 1999’s Gone with the Wind in the Vatican by “I Millenari” (indeed, some of the targets in the curia seem to be the same in both these works). But the focus of the Dictator Pope greatly differs from that work. It concentrates not so much on inside “revelations” but on the career, background and circumstances on one individual – namely, Pope Francis. It seeks to deepen our understanding of what is already known, to provide background and to “connect the dots” among people and policies.

The Dictator Pope is streamlined, succinct and well written. Here and there (such as in his discussion of the situation of the Knights of Malta) our author – “Marcantonio Colonna” – does seem to display specific knowledge beyond what has been published previously. Yet, as I noted, this book does not emphasize journalistic “leaks.” We indeed are told Pope Francis directed the contribution of funds to the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. But does that supposed fact have any significance given what we already know about the media support, both direct and indirect, given to the Democratic Party by Francis – surely of incomparably greater value to Hillary than any money Francis could put on the table?

For several reasons the Dictator Pope strikes me as reliable. For one thing, Colonna’s description of Jorge Bergoglio’s style and modus operandi agrees very well with what I have been told by those with more direct knowledge than I possess of his doings in both Rome and Argentina. It also corresponds to certain reports that have appeared now and then in the European – never the English language – mainstream press. Curiously, some of these unflattering accounts are found in sources – like the German media – otherwise entirely aligned with Bergoglio.

Marcantonio Colonna shows the stuff of a true historian in creating a narrative of the Bergoglio years and offering his judgment on what he describes. Instead of nonsense about “God’s choice,” the colorful account of the Dictator Pope has the ring of truth: the relentless rise to the top of an ambitious and manipulative man, the making of strategic alliances and political concessions leading to the acquisition of the papacy and the imposition of the Pope’s personal agenda, the ruthless elimination of real or imaginary enemies, the advancement of unworthy and corrupt favorites. The Vatican as described in this work reminds us of the stories of the Renaissance papacy told in the great histories of Leopold von Ranke and Ludwig von Pastor. Indeed, Marcantonio Colonna himself draws comparisons between Pope Francis and certain ruthlessly ambitious, often megalomaniac and, in one or two cases, perhaps even insane popes of the 14th – 17th centuries, as so well described by his illustrious predecessors.

This portrait of Pope Francis outlined in the Dictator Pope, though, requires some qualification. For one thing, the popes of the past to whom Colonna compares Francis may have been lacking in one or more – or many – of the Christian virtues ( and often in sound judgment as well ) but they were strong characters who battled against and among other powerful rival families and factions within the Church and with the great secular kingdoms and principalities of their day. Francis only has to contend with the bureaucratic ninnies of the post – Vatican II Catholic hierarchy. Regarding today’s secular powers – like the news media – Francis pursues a policy of obsequious and abject submission. For, without exception, the policies of Francis are those of the Western secular establishment from whose support Francis derives all his power.

Furthermore, these notorious popes of the past showed rare taste in art and culture. I don’t know what the reign of Francis has to offer in comparison – a homoerotic nativity scene or one of Cardinal Ravasi’s exhibits? And whatever else they were doing, the popes of the Renaissance also devoted great personal attention to the liturgy – the celebration of the papal ceremonial was a major attraction of that period. Pope Francis either disregards the liturgy altogether or “repurposes” it for political statements.

I also must take issue with Colonna’s unduly restrictive characterization of significance of the papacy of Francis. For if Francis were simply one more unscrupulous, ambitious and opportunistic prelate – like Alexander VI – we could consider him simply a regrettable but ultimately remediable failure of the papal election process. But the added dimension of Francis’s papacy is his clear ideological commitment to Catholic progressivism. Whether that is simply a cynical means to the acquisition of power (as Colonna implies) or is a matter of personal conviction is irrelevant – it is by now an unalterable aspect of his character. Whatever the origin of his beliefs may be, Pope Francis is a man with a mission to “unleash” and “make irreversible” the Vatican II – to make permanent what has been done since 1962-65 and to implement further radical changes in Catholic liturgy, morality and theology. And the policies of Pope Francis are not a bolt from the blue, but the logical culmination of the disastrous trends in theology, morality, liturgy and government in the Catholic Church that have been allowed to develop and fester since 1962-65. Pope Francis’s progressive agenda involves not just the completion of a revolution within the Church but the final, absolute subjection of the Church to the dominant secular powers of 21st century.

Marcantonio Colonna’s narrative helps us to see the current situation in the Church more clearly. And a clear view of what’s going on is always a major first step forward towards reform. The response of the Vatican to this book, we hear, is a search for the author’s identity. For the rest of us, Dictator Pope is a challenge: to reflect, to pray and to take action.

In Decadence, Michael Onfray seeks to set forth a “philosophy of history” outlining the origins and end of Christendom (or Judeo-Christianity, as he calls it). Onfray is the French equivalent of the representatives of “New Atheism” in the English-speaking world. For his guiding lights, our author draws on on Nietzsche, the ancient epicureans, and the atheist writers of the enlightenment and of the 19th century. For example, Onfray lists as a primary source for much of this history Francis (sic) Gibbons ’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Onfray’s style is colorful, if at times a bit ranting and not free of errors. His analysis is not so much a detailed review of historical facts but usually presents a discussion of one or more representative texts from each topic he covers.

The first half of the book – covering developments from the time of Christ until the 16th century – describes the birth and flourishing of “Judeo-Christianity.” You have heard the substance of these chapters often before: “Christ” was a fiction, St Paul was a neurotic who hated the body and women, Christianity was invented by Constantine to cement his rule and adopted by the masses seeking relief from their suffering state. From these beginnings the Church promoted violence, war and hatred of the body, persecuted Jews, witches and women, massacred native peoples in the Americas etc. In a later period, Fascism and specifically Hitler appear as a creation of Pius XII (the triumphant proof? Mein Kampf was not put on the index of prohibited books) It is all very familiar and moreover seems to recycle material from Onfray’s other books (notably his magnum opus Atheologie).

In the second half of his work, the author narrates the post medieval period of “Exhaustion.” The edifice of Christendom started to wobble when certain enlightened individuals started to read certain non–theistic texts from antiquity, to understand science and to think for themselves.

Based on what you have read so far of his views you would expect Onfray to be a celebrity honored by The Guardian, the New York Times and Le Monde, and to be a regular speaker on the French broadcast media and the BBC. Indeed, his books have been best sellers in France and elsewhere in Europe. But in the final post-1789 sections of his work “Senescence” and “Decay” Onfray departs from the establishment’s “politically correct” narrative. His view of the French Revolution and its campaigns of extermination is decidedly unfavorable. Nor does he admire Marxism and the innumerable massacres it brought about. As the story moves into a time of which the author has direct experience his criticism intensifies. He doesn’t think much of structuralism, Freudianism and other fads of the French intelligentsia. The same is true of the cult of “contemporary art.” The result of these ideologies is a European incapacity to either recognize reality or to defend itself. Onfray is particularly harsh on the intellectuals’ current love affair with Islam: he spends many pages recounting the misdeeds of the “religion of peace.” But like Houellebecq, he contrasts Islam’s vitality with the senescent nihilism of contemporary Europe.

The chapter entitled “Christian De-Christianization: the Imminent Paraclete of Vatican II” will be of particular interest to the Traditional Catholic. For Onfray views Vatican II as a major contributor to the current nihilist crisis – particularly by its changes to the liturgy. For example:

“This destruction of the sacred, this massacre of transcendence, this trivial descent on earth by the Divinity culminated in the new “stage design” of the mass. For centuries the tabernacle, which contains the Holy Ghost, had been set on the altar, which stands at the end of the sanctuary. There the priest celebrated the mass before this sacred object. The celebrant, clothed in priestly vestments, had his back to the faithful because he was facing the Sacred, in the presence of the Divine, gazing at the Holy Spirit, in direct contact with the Divinity, in the sight of the consecrated host and thus of the real presence of the Body of Christ. This location proves to be eminently symbolic because it is the place of the rising sun, in other words, the direction from which Christ will come at the final judgment. …

The liturgical changes of Vatican II abolished this arrangement in favor of a new set design: an altar is built in the choir between the sanctuary where the Holy Spirit is found and the nave where the mass of the faithful prays. This time the priest turns his back to the tabernacle, thus to the rising sun, thus to the second coming of God and thus to God himself – all in in order to face the people which from now on can look at him face to face. Certainly the priest is closer to his flock but that is at the price of a greater distance from God. Of the realm of the symbolic and of allegory it’s terrible: in order to bring people closer to God Vatican II realized exactly the opposite.” (page 517)

These views accord with conclusions previously reached by numerous other observers – both Catholic Traditionalists and secular. We have covered many of them in this blog. Onfray renders us a real service by detailing for us the incompatibility of Christianity with the ”modern world. ”

The civilization of rock and of comic books, of movies and television, of nightclubs and of nicotine addiction, of the birth control pill and of divorce, of alcohol and narcotics, of the refrigerator and of the automobile, of the atomic bomb and of the Cold War, of free love and of leisure, of money and of objects, advances while crushing everything in its path. Vatican II couldn’t do anything about it. It even seems that, having wanted to be a remedy, the Council exacerbated the disease. By making God a pal to slap on the back, 1) of the priest a buddy to be invited to share a vacation, of symbolism an old fashioned thing to be abolished, of the mystery of transcendence a banal immanence, of the mass a show imitating the layout of a television broadcast, of ritual an affair drawing indiscriminately on the success of popular hits or on the naive art of the craziest believers, of the message of Christ a simple labor union tract, of the soutane a theatrical costume, of other religions spiritualties as valid as that of Christianity, the Church precipitated the movement forward which proclaimed its own fall. (page 518)

Yes, Onfray’s view of the modern world is a dim one. The key prophets of the current age turned out to be not Rousseau, Marx or Tocqueville but Orwell and Huxley. He describes the incomplete cathedral of Sagrada Familia in Barcelona as the symbol of the end of Christendom – the Christian equivalent of Chernobyl, the ruin of the contemporary technological age. The modern age cannot finish even this one church after a century. For Onfray it is the summit of irony that it was Pope Benedict XVI who consecrated this “ruin of Christianity”.

“La Sagrada Familia remains a ruin and the Pope who consecrated it has resigned. Rome is no more (even) in Rome.” (page 21)

Yes, we can agree with Onfray that historical Christendom is well and truly dead! But where I would beg to differ from him is this: I see Christianity continuing in a thousand places. Whatever the public profile and political influence of the institutional Church may be, Christianity continues. And whatever buffooneries are taking place in Rome right now, the real Rome continues in the celebration of the Traditional Mass.

tutoyer “to address with familiar ‘tu.’”

(The translations are mine for which I request the reader’s forbearance.)

The Council of the Bookkeepers: the Destruction of the Sensuous; a Critique of Religion

by Alfred Lorenzer

Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1981

It is a rare pleasure to return once more to a book, which I had first read so many years ago. As far as I am aware, Alfred Lorenzer’s Council of the Bookkeepers is the first attempt to analyze, in a rational framework, the Second Vatican Council in the context of the political, economic and sociological developments of the contemporary Western world. What has happened since 1981? To what extent has time validated the author’s conclusions?

Our author introduces his book with “this is the book of an atheist written for readers that probably in the great majority are also atheists.” (p. 9) But may not an atheist have decided advantages over the believer in writing about the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church? For the contemporary Catholic author inevitably feels compelled to defer to some “infallible” authority – the pope, the Council or the entire episcopacy – which remains beyond analysis and criticism. We have seen this clearly in the “theological” discussion of hermeneutics of “reform in continuity” or “rupture” as applied to the Vatican Council. Closely connected with the foregoing, most “professional” Catholic writers have difficulty in registering the full range of facts – especially those that seem to contradict their conclusions. Now any observer of the contemporary academy can testify that the limitations on thought found there are also great and growing ever stronger. Nevertheless at least the theoretical possibility of apprehending reality still exists.

After his introduction, Lorenzer cites Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, and proceeds to rage against a recent document of the German Bishops conference attacking the liberalization of abortion. (How many of those have there ever been?) Presumably this is to establish the author’s “street cred” with his left-wing readership. For, as we shall see, his conclusions are not at all what one has come to expect from either secular or Catholic progressives.

At the risk of oversimplification, I would attempt to summarize the author’s point of departure as follows. Psychological analysis establishes the importance of symbols in the development of the human personality. Of the greatest importance is the “presentative” character of the symbol. In other words, the sensuous symbol offers itself to the observer as a whole, as something to be freely explored and understood. The author contrasts this with the didactic, rational, “discursive” nature of modern communications, especially, under modern civil society, of advertising. In the latter, opinions and ideologies are imposed upon the recipient. The loss of symbols creates a personality which cannot mature, and thus necessarily remains unemancipated and unfree.

Now the Council and specifically the decrees on the reform of the liturgy substituted a didactic, discursive approach for the previous symbolic essence of the liturgy. The new function of the mass was to deliver content to the assembled congregation. In so doing, the office of the priest or “presider” paradoxically acquired a greatly increased importance. In other words, far from fostering an allegedly “mature” laity, the Council actually had exactly the opposite consequence. This corresponds to modernity and its endless bombardment of its denizens by advertising.

The Council itself instituted the disastrous tendency of reinforcing the central authority instead of reducing the hierarchy as had been so often rhetorically invoked…. The reform of the curia “in the spirit of the Council” produced a stripped down, effective organization on the model of a large business enterprise with an age limit for all the top managers (except the pope himself). If the pope previously had been a sacred figure in the solitude of the apostolic palace, distant from the events of the world, who in his remoteness “proclaimed,” “reaffirmed” and “expressed concerns,” Paul VI insisted on his (political) influence on his travels to the UN and to focal points of political events…. John Paul II gave to this exercise of power the practical and effective form by flexible adaptation to a modern leadership style. (For example) accompanied by a horde of reporters, on his flight to Puebla, he granted the journalists “a conversation – previously unheard of in this form – of one and a half hours.” …. John Paul II provides on a daily basis new examples of this transformation of the pope from a sacred and remote “successor of the prince of the apostles” to a popular leader:

“The pope drops the old fashioned “We” in his addresses. He tries on cowboy hats and mountain climbers’ caps. He abolishes the “sedes gestatoria.” (but) walks on foot through the crowd and answers their applause with de Gaulle-like gestures. He takes “a bath in the crowd.” He is driven in a jeep through St Peter’s Square….. (pp.74-75)

And Lorenzer rightly insists that “the twofold structural change in hierarchical behavior – renunciation of the traditional, solemn image and the strengthening of directing authority – is no invention of John Paul II. ..It is undoubtedly is not a characteristic specific to a personality but typical of a structure. (p. 76)

As we see from the above, Lorenzer has the merit of not merely propounding theories but of illustrating them throughout by practical examples. He quotes from insightful observers like Pier Pasolini and also tells us what he himself has seen in the churches of Europe and Latin America. They provide a scathing indictment of the Council’s liturgical and cultural devastation – in particular, in the sixth chapter ”The Vandalism of the Second Vatican Council.”

In the Church there took place – at least unwittingly – a profound dissolution of religious values. As a consequence, the masses of middle and south Italy were handed over to the power of the media and therefore of the ruling ideology: to the hedonism of the consumer society. (p. 179 (quoting Pasolini))

What does Lorenzer mean? In the reform of the liturgy he sees the loss of the sensual and the symbolic in favor of the ideological transmittal of texts. Put more in technical terms:

Let us stress that the council, with its reform of the liturgy

destroyed the liturgy as work of art; and

“ideologized” the liturgy and thus twisted, through substitute rituals, the old reciprocal relationship between presentative symbolism and sensual- symbolic forms of interaction into an indoctrination affecting the very physical body. (p. 193)

Historically, every detail of a church was invested with symbols, from the great works of art (architecture, painting, sculpture, music) to the creations of artisans (candles, floral arrangements, ex votos). But all circled around the altar and the celebration of the liturgy.

The cultic “ accessories” on every baroque altar are constitutive elements of the work of art. Just removing the altar linens ruins the altar. (p. 205)

All that is gone now. In the new liturgy:

Nothing of what celebrant does or omits is hidden from the “spectator.” … Not only does the microphone make public every rustling and every breath. The image the public sees is closer to the setup in front of a TV chef than to the liturgical forms of even the Calvinist churches. (p 192)

The utensils of a strange, archaically exaggerated lecture hall take the place of the old sensuous symbolism: sacrificial stone and druid’s chair, microphone and loudspeakers (which are never absent even where the church is tiny and has room for only a couple of dozen people) (p. 206)

Furthermore, the altar of gothic or baroque churches is often moved forward to the front of the sanctuary or into the crossing of the transept, destroying the entire harmony and equilibrium of the interior, centered as it was on the original position of the altar. In other churches the old altars are simply destroyed.

Even where churches have been preserved as museums there is no relief:

In Tepozotlan in Mexico is one of the most beautiful monasteries of the Churriguerescan (elaborate baroque) style of the 18th century – arranged as a museum of religious art. But whoever hopes to find at least one authentically preserved church amid the mass of those destroyed by the Council will be disappointed. … The restorers have contributed their own form of spatial destruction – specific to their trade: the very last corner of the church vaulting is illuminated by electricity, so that the interior has entirely lost its atmosphere. The original mixture of light has been replaced by electric sources, which run along the ledges like absurd garlands of light. And naturally the altars are bare…. (p. 210 )

Is not St Patrick’s Cathedral the best New York example of precisely such actions?

Lorenzer helps us to understand many of the things we ourselves have experienced over the last 50 years. His analysis anchors the Council firmly in the secular trends of the dominant “Atlantic culture” of Western Europe and North America. It clarifies why at all times the Church establishment has seen the FSSPX and the Traditionalist movement in general as a greater threat then all the forces of the Catholic progressives, which, on paper, might seem to the outsider to be more in conflict with Church doctrine. It explains why liturgical movements such as “reform of the reform” must inevitably fail, because they tack on to a fundamentally alien body the trappings of a prior symbolic system. It is also makes clear that a clergy, who created the new system in the 1960’s and now, 50 years later, are largely the product of it, would be utterly unreceptive either to reform of the reform or the traditional liturgy. Most importantly, his analysis furnishes a convincing explanation of the radical decline in Catholic religious practice since the Council.

Further confirming Lorenzer, we now have a pope who has dropped the last vestiges of a “religious style” and has assumed an almost totally secular approach both in content and form. His controlling initiatives (like climate change, migrants, ecology and divorce) are difficult or impossible to distinguish from the views of the secular establishment; the style of his public appearances and interviews is a more radical development of those of John Paul II.

Of course, when we return to a text that we have not read for years we do encounter defects that had slipped our mind. The many lengthy digressions, particularly those in which the author expounds his psychoanalytic theories, make for difficult reading. If Lorenzer laments the then current lack of interest in psychoanalysis, he should have examined the passages he himself wrote as evidence of one obvious cause. Lorenzer also does at times fall into a more conventional leftist discourse, fulminating about “fascism” and seeing the products of the “conciliar church” as a “mask” for political objectives.

Statements similar to Lorenzer’s observations on symbols, desacralizing modernity and liturgy have of course been made by others over the years. He himself cites Max Weber who in turn reaches back to Hegel, Schiller and the Romantic poets. In The Stripping of the Altars, (1992) Eamon Duffy described how, starting under Henry VIII, changes in ritual practice produced changes in religious belief in 16th century England. One also thinks of the discussion at pp. 23-41 in Fr. Uwe Michael Lang’s recent Signs of the Holy One (2015) – some of the sources quoted there pre-date the Council of the Bookkeepers. Finally, at the 2015 New York Sacra Liturgia conference one speaker – whose name escapes me – noted the significance of the reversal by Pius XII of the order of Lex Orandi and Lex Credendi. By asserting the primacy of the Lex Credendi over the Lex Orandi, Pius XII had – even before the Council – identified catechesis or indoctrination as the primary task of the Liturgy.

A critique of the ideological positions of the German left is outside the scope of this review. But it is instructive to see how in this work the pseudo–economic and pseudo-medical foundations of Marx and Freud have entirely disappeared. (Cf. Paul Gottfried’s TheStrange Death of Marxism: the European Left in the New Millennium (2005)). And Lorenzer’s mix of psychoanalysis, Marxism and (unacknowledged) Americanism by today has hardened into an ideology that dominates Germany and Europe. We doubt that our author would have been totally happy with that. In the Council of the Bookkeepers no system escapes his criticism – not just the capitalist west, but also the “really existing“ socialism of the Soviet bloc, Western leftism and even Latin American liberation theology. I feel sorry for Alfred Lorenzer! He seems to have been one of the few leftists – like George Orwell – who, while sincerely believing the “liberating” promises of progressive doctrines, could never look away from the facts. But, by so doing, has not the author, without necessarily admitting it himself, taken his first step away from modernity and its ideologies? In conclusion, does that not leave us with at least a slim hope:

Maybe the end of the Church has already been sealed by the “treason” of millions and millions of the faithful (particularly the peasants who have converted to secularism and consumerist hedonism). Maybe the end has been sealed by the “decision” of the rulers who are meanwhile certain of getting in their clutches the ex-believers – given the affluent conditions and an ideology that has been imposed on the masses. An ideology, moreover, that does not even feel it to be necessary any more to act as such. That may be. But one thing is sure: the Church has certainly committed many awful mistakes in the long history of its regime, but she would commit the worst of all if she passively stood by while she was liquidated by a power that mocks the Gospel. In the context of a radical, possibly utopian or – here one really has to say it- eschatological perspective, it’s clear what the Church has to do to avoid an inglorious end. She has to go into opposition. (p 180 (quoting Pasolini))

At times, given the non-stop chaotic news emanating from the Vatican, one forgets that the “Pope Emeritus” is still with us. Benedict, it seems clear now, will be remembered for two things. First, he promulgated Summorum Pontificum, in which returned the traditional liturgy to an official position within the Church. For that we – and the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny – owe him eternal gratitude. But, second, he resigned the papacy, enabling a takeover of the Vatican by the left that is plunging the Catholic Church into an ever-expanding existential crisis.

Last year, Benedict issued another book of interviews with Peter Seewald. 1) If I had access to the archival background, I would be very much surprised not to find that this book, like its 2011 predecessor Licht der Welt (Light of the World), had originated as a specific response by the Vatican to a threatening public relations issue. In 2011 it was the adverse criticism by the media (and one or more European governments?) of Benedict’s statements on condoms, his lifting of the excommunications of the FSSPX bishops and in general, his unacceptable (to the secular establishment) “conservatism.” Today, it’s the growing opposition to the policies of Pope Francis, particularly among those Catholics that were the greatest fans of Benedict

Much of what I would say about this book I had already considered writing years ago about Pope Benedict’s last interview with Seewald. Perhaps the greatest significance of this kind of book is that it appears at all. For by adopting the interview format, Benedict conforms to the requirements of Western civil society by placing himself on exactly the same level as the interviewer.2) The papal interview, introduced by John Paul II, has been carried to its ultimate extreme by Pope Francis. Indeed, for Bergoglio the allegedly impromptu interview has become a key vehicle for initiating and accompanying revolutionary change in the Church – while signaling his complete conformity with the ideology of the Western secular establishment.

Our conclusion, that a book like this illustrates the relative superiority of media power vis-a-vis the Catholic hierarchy, is further reinforced by the rhetorical style of the two partners in this “conversation.” Seewald is self-assured, even forceful, often conducting a dialogue with himself and drawing his own conclusions, which he then proposes to Benedict for comment and approval. The voice of Benedict, on the other hand, is colorless, dry and often monosyllabic. Except for certain instances we will discuss below, his style is emotionless and bald.

This is not at all to say that Seewald is an intelligent, insightful, forceful interviewer. Far from it! His entire view of the world – and all the questions he poses to Benedict – seem derived from the reading of German newspapers and magazines. All too often his tone is now fawning, now pretentious. He frequently concentrates on trivia – like what make of car Ratzinger was driving on a certain occasion. But to give the devil his due, Seewald here and there does raise certain obvious and uncomfortable issues with Benedict – but usually does not try hard enough to probe beneath the bland responses of his papal interviewee.

Now the main message of Last Conversations is simple: There are no issues, conflicts or rivalries – at least not within the Vatican. All decisions Benedict has taken have been correct. Does Benedict regret, for example, even for a minute, his own resignation? “No, no, no. I see every day, that it was right.” Did he resign under the pressure of intrigues and adverse events? Certainly not – everything was in order when resigned. Seewald: “Was there an aspect (of the resignation) that you perhaps had not considered – that only afterwards has become clear to you?” “No.” The gay lobby within the Vatican? Only a small group which Benedict already had neutralized by the end of his pontificate. Vatileaks? All the fault of one rogue butler!

Pope Francis? According to Benedict, he has such a straightforward way with people; his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium and his interviews show he is a “thoughtful man.” Seewald: ”So you don’t see anywhere a rupture with your pontificate?”“No. … Naturally, there are perhaps new accents but no contradictions.” And is Benedict satisfied with the papacy of Pope Francis so far? “Yes. A new freshness in the Church, a new happiness, a new charisma that appeals to people – that is already something beautiful.”

And so on and so forth. It doesn’t make for compelling reading – and often seems to conflict with known facts and the statements of highly placed individuals (such as Pope Francis). In this respect, isn’t this book a continuation of the mainstream “narrative” of the post-conciliar Roman Catholic hierarchy, as refined during the years of John Paul II? The clergy labor to project the outward appearance of omniscience, unity and infallibility, while problems are denied or swept under the rug. This style of public relations management, moreover, is very similar to that of present–day government bureaucracies and business corporations. Before 2007-2008, didn’t our finance industry swear all was in order and proceeding according to plan – and then the bankruptcies and takeovers were announced. For the difficulty is what perhaps starts as a tactic to manage the perceptions of the public, employees and other institutions inevitably becomes an article of faith of the manipulators themselves. In Church, business and government the inevitable outcome is growing disassociation of the leadership class from reality.

The earlier Ratzinger of the 1980’s did acknowledge a crisis – at least liturgically. His Ratzinger Report was a precious spotlight on the liturgical disaster of the Church – a disaster that was otherwise denied by the entire establishment. Later, regrettably, Ratzinger seems to have felt compelled to resume the role of the company man, the ecclesiastical bureaucrat.

At times the inability of the team of Pope Benedict and Seewald to focus on the issues produces real stylistic gems:

Seewald: “That means that you didn’t receive in advance the first apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium?”

Benedict: “No. But he sent me with it a very nice personal letter in his tiny handwriting. That is much smaller than mine. Compared with him, I write really large.”

The Pope Emeritus maintains a remote and serene air. One would get the impression that Benedict had been a distant observer, rather than a direct participant, in the often-tumultuous events of his pontificate. A failure to get one scholar to endorse his candidacy for a professorial position in 1955 perturbs him more than the breakdown of the Church. It’s left to the troops on the ground – the families and a minority of the parish priests – to deal with and “get excited about” the closing of parishes and schools, the wave of clerical scandals, the alienation of the next generation and most of their contemporaries from the faith.

Now Pope Benedict is primarily a scholar, you say, not a man of action. In the case of a man with such a distinguished academic career and over thirty years of experience at the highest levels of the Vatican, one would look forward to perceptive reflections and judgments on the Church, the world and our age. But you will be very disappointed – there are precious few of them in this book. We might also expect from Benedict, who has demonstrated such eloquence on things of the spirit, spiritual insights as well. These are limited to a few pages – and sometimes cry out for further development, given the present situation of the Church:

“If a pope only received applause, he would have to ask himself if he was doing something wrong. …There will always be contradiction and the pope will always be a sign of contradiction.”

Readers may be surprised to find that at least half of Last Conversations is devoted to a miniature biography of Ratzinger leading up to his election as Pope. I frankly found little of interest here – but there are compensations. In the discussion of Vatican II, for example, Benedict entertains the question of whether the council was worth it, before of course reaffirming it was the right thing to do. Then there is an appreciation of German scholars who offered the first resistance to the chaos enfolding the Church after the Council, names that Catholics should better remember today: Hubert Jedin, Paul Hacker. But in the case of Hacker, the contacts chilled when he started to criticize the Council. And as for the “other side?” Benedict does exhibit a decidedly cool attitude towards Rahner and Kueng. In contrast, he finds Johann Baptist Metz to have been a true son of the Church. And what who was largely responsible for the post-conciliar crisis? “Journalists!”

Pope Ratzinger does not totally preserve his calm in this book. He has some unexpectedly harsh words for the German Church that so consistently opposed him during his pontificate. But, I submit, to attribute all the problems there to the Church tax and the bureaucratic mentality of clerical and lay functionaries does not tell the whole story.

And what of the topic that probably interests our readers most – the liturgy? As to the “reform of the reform,” Seewald frankly asks why so little happened in the realm of the liturgy – where Benedict had full authority.

“You can’t do that much institutionally and legally. The important thing is that men learn inwardly what liturgy is and what it really means. That‘s why I have written books.”

Benedict even denies that the few steps he did take – such as introducing communion on the tongue at papal masses – had any policy significance beyond the merely practical. But, Seewald asks: couldn’t you just have spoken an “authoritative word?” Benedict’s succinct answer: “No!” Is it surprising, therefore, that ROTR went nowhere under Benedict?

In the case of Summorum Pontificum, however, the Pope Emeritus miraculously gives a clear and convincing restatement of its rationale:

(It was not at all a concession to the FSSPX) “It was important for me that the Church herself be inwardly at peace with her own past. So that that, which once had been sacred, is not now wrong. …(M)y intention, as I have said, was not tactical – for me it was a matter of the substantive issue itself.”

Of course, the currently reigning bishop of Rome has expressly contradicted this only a few weeks ago.

Last Conversations reveals that the personality of Joseph Ratzinger was indeed very ill-suited to an office requiring the capacity to lead, manage and rule. That is even truer in the chaos of a post-conciliar Church led by incompetent, rebellious and often treacherous clerics and in the sights of an increasingly hostile modernity.

But the failure of his pontificate is not at all just the story of a well-meaning man who lacked leadership skills or (as he says in this book) the “ability to judge people.” It is the institutional failure of a Vatican and a hierarchy increasingly remote from reality and, sensing their own weakness, avoiding confrontation with both the secular world and contrary movements within the Church itself. It is a tragedy that Ratzinger’s many valid insights and initiatives for a reform of the Church clashed so greatly with this clerical culture of which he himself was so much a part.

In retrospect, we should not have been surprised that the outcome of this conflict was capitulation (Benedict’s resignation) and the ascendancy of a diametrically opposed movement. But Benedict has left to us his one great achievement, his true “last testament” – Summorum Pontificum. And to evaluate its effects will take more than a slim book of interviews. Only future generations will know the end of the story.

This review is based on the original text and all the quotations are my own translations. I think that’s probably fortunate – given that the ( I hope inappropriate) title Last Testament: in His Own Words has been bestowed on the translation.

As the late Thomas Molnar noted when John Paul II initiated this practice.

In the United States Martin Mosebach, the liturgical essayist, is well known. Martin Mosebach, the novelist and writer, is far less known. After all, it was only two years ago that one of his novels, What Was Before, was translated into English for the first time. Mosebach has now published Life is Short: Twelve Bagatelles, a collection of his shorter and shortest fiction. If it were only translated, it would be for the American reader an ideal concentrated introduction to the style of Martin Mosebach.

Life is Short gathers previously published short works. In general, I would categorize them as “prose poems” rather than short stories. Rather than presenting a narrative or character, the miniatures in Life is Short describe an object, capture a mood or a moment – often in an indirect, indeterminate way. One thinks of such remote antecedents as Arthur Machen’s Ornaments in Jade (1897) or J-K Huysmans’ Drageoir aux Épices (1874). Mosebach’s style, however, if “poetic” in the use of sound and images, is more restrained and precise. And, as in Mosebach’s novels, here and there is satire and even comedy.

As to things, Life is Short offers numerous descriptions of objects as diverse as a bicycle, a pigeon egg or the wreckage of an (apparently) abandoned barber shop. Mosebach endows mere things with new significance, even (in the case of the bicycle) a life of their own. As William Carlos Williams put it:

“So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow….”

But has not this kind of imagery always been a particular excellence of the author? One remembers so well the sacred cow in Das Beben, or the descriptions of a nightingale and later of the cockatoo in Was Davor Geschah.

These “bagatelles” also capture fleeting, uncertain and sometimes deceptive moments of life such as a boy’s exhilarating bicycle ride downhill after a hard day at school or the glimpse of a mysterious stranger sitting in a train compartment by a rider standing on the platform. If life is short, even more brief are the few moments that allow us insight into in it.

Some of the pieces in Life is Short assume the form of a short story. A tale of an artist and her friend discussing the components of a still life unexpectedly turns unsettling, even menacing. A visit to a dying deserted French town climaxing in a mysterious late night conversation leaves the story’s narrator perplexed as to what he as seen or imagined.

Yes, life is short – but art is long. If you want to get to know Mosebach the artist, this is a good place to start. But what of Mosebach the Catholic advocate, the inspiring writer on the liturgy? In the following brief final section of “Vinusse: Eight Wine Labels and a Prologue,” the author does more explicitly present liturgical and theological themes in an anecdote that takes place in his own backyard, near Frankfurt. It’s a tale that also leaves us with a kind of commentary on the meaning of this little book.

The Wine of Sacrifice

The biretta of the monsignor hung from the hat rack in the foyer. Its glowing crimson pompom was the only sign of baroque pleasure in color in the severe scholar’s dwelling. The old theologian regarded not as old-fashioned ballast, but as extraordinarily meaningful, that, as is often the case in the Rheingau, a vineyard was attached to the rectory. In this way a gift, the purity of which he well knew, entered the gothic chalice with which he offered the sacrifice.

The walls of his study were covered up to the ceiling with brown rows of books. The complete edition of Migne’s church fathers, bound in black-waxed linen, was ready at hand. The afternoon sun created small foci of light in the wine glasses that stood before us.

“This wine is the best that wine can become” said the cleric. “Firne-wine. Once upon a time these wines were desired but today nobody understands anything about them. People believe they have gone bad. And indeed they taste totally different. In many of my Rieslings the Firne sets in just after six or eight years, with others only after twelve or fifteen. The wine grows darker and there develops a taste of fine Spanish snuff tobacco: a hint of turpentine, a breath of noble resin pervades the wine like a marriage, made only in the imagination, between wine and incense. Maybe the wine, impatient and desperate at having to wait for its use in the Sacrifice, undertakes itself an attempt at auto-transubstantiation.

He hadn’t joked, but nevertheless smiled.

“Wine, after all, has been meant for sacrifice from the beginning. When wine was offered in the room of the last supper in Jerusalem that was done not out of the inspiration of the moment but in conscious remembrance of the mysterious, almost prehistoric priest-king Melchizedek, who had likewise made an offering of bread and wine. The matter of a sacrifice is not at our disposal. It is very true: visible things are not the final reality, but a kind of writing, by aid of which the invisible appears. An alphabet has letters that cannot be switched. Like all heresies, the idea arose early on that other substances could replace wine. Around 200 A.D. there was a sect in the Near East – the Aquarians – that in the Christian sacrifice used water instead of wine. To his everlasting fame, St. Cyprian of Carthage put the Aquarians’ madness in its place. Although my Firne – wine is only twenty years old, the Firne endows it with an ancient character. Therefore, with it I greet Saint Cyprian and his struggle against godless anti-sensuousness.”

Not many visitors to the Frick Collection fail to notice a remarkable early Renaissance panel: St Francis in the Desert (also known as St. Francis in Ecstasy). The saint turns away from a dark hermitage at Mount La Verna where he has been engaged in meditation. He rises up to behold a divine light transforming both himself and the resplendent landscape that a spreads out before him. It seems that only through withdrawal and asceticism has St. Francis first been empowered to perceive the beauty of the world about him.

In a New Light is devoted entirely to this work, one of the masterpieces of Giovanni Bellini (1424/35 – 1516) the first supreme master of Venetian painting. The work was created in a society in which the contradictions of later ages had not yet emerged. In was a world in which theology, artistic technique, business and politics, public and private devotion were inextricably intertwined and “mutually enriching” (to apply a recent phrase). The patron was a leading man of the day – but not of the nobility. Both patron and artist belonged to the same lay confraternity. “The size of the panel, the care bestowed on its autograph design and the use of high quality ultramarine in the sky bespeak the work’s prestige and expense.”

It was a work intended for a private home or chapel. St. Francis in the Desert was:

“Among the most detailed of Bellini’s larger pictures, suggesting the work was intended to be scrutinized close up in an intimate setting rather than viewed from afar in a communal one. In the context of personal religious devotion, highly polished works….invite the spectator to embark on a meditational voyage, with the incidental discovery of minute details a reward for prolonged engagement and attentive viewing. (p. 123-24).

For the fact is that the incredible naturalist detail of mountains, towns, clothing plants and animals does not detract from the spiritual significance of this painting but reinforces it. The same can be said of the other innovations of Bellini: the use of oil paints, the depiction of the effects of natural light and of perspective and most obviously the creative departure from the usual iconography of the stigmatization of Saint Francis. Maureen Mullarkey has recently written insightfully on the difference between the “sense of the sacred” embodied in Isenheimer Altar of Grunewald and the “technically” focused, realistic art of Titian. In the case of Giovanni Bellini, however, such a contradiction does not yet exist:

The perceptive treatment of natural light furthers an essential aim of Bellini’s art: to create an illusion so convincing as to draw the spectator into authentic visionary experience, the sense that divinity has become fully and actually present in this world. (p.105)

As the authors state, summarizing the art historian Millard Meiss:

The golden effulgence at the panels upper left hand corner was, (Meiss) argued, the symbol of an “unseen power” that miraculously sealed Francis’s flesh with the stigmata and transformed him into the likeness of God incarnate. Bellini’s spreading landscape supplied a true receptacle for this hallowed light, drawing all creation into ecstatic transformation.

Yet this painting depicts not the stigmatization of St. Francis, but his transfiguration. Francis has indeed become an Alter Christus – but only by first participating in Christ’s suffering. Indeed, In a New Light is almost a course in itself on Franciscan mystical theology of the late middle ages.

Other chapters in this book by the authors and several other contributors tell us all about the history and context of the painting. Its well-documented path from Venice to New York is laid out. The technical findings from the recent restoration are presented. By comparing St Francis in the Desert with other works by Bellini and his contemporaries the authors propose dating the work to 1476-78. And Michael F Cusato OFM traces the picture back to Franciscan vernacular texts that were circulating in Italy at the end of the 15th century. He argues that the painting is not a direct product of the observant friars themselves but of the lay Franciscan environment of urban Venice.

So much can be learned from just one painting! In a New Light is a thorough guide. But before reading about this painting you should first visit the Frick Collection and contemplate St. Francis in the Desert for yourself…

Signs of the Holy One: Liturgy, Ritual and the Expression of the Sacred

By Uwe Michael Lang

(Ignatius Press, San Francisco 2015)

Fr. Uwe Michael Lang “of the Oratory” has given us a succinct, well written account of the movement to restore the presence of the sacred and the awareness of beauty within the Catholic Church. He provides those engaged in this effort a helpful guide to the relevant theory, tradition and authority.

In his first chapter the author offers an analysis of the “Sacred” and “Ritual.” Starting from the work of secular philosophers and sociologists, the “sacred’ and the “profane” emerge as categories. The sacred relates to the experience of the “numinous,” of the “wholly other.” (Rudolf Otto) That experience however is mediated and to some extent defined by ritual. Now ritual is “a culturally constructed system of symbolic communication.” (quoting Stanley J. Tambiah). A system of symbols – such as the mass – is far more than a series of texts to be read. “The solemn Mass consists of an integrated complex of words, music and movement, together with other visual and even olfactory elements.” (p. at 11)(quoting W.P. Mahrt). Without pretending to have exhausted in any way the richness of the ideas discussed in this chapter (and in the introduction), we can at a very minimum conclude that the Traditional Roman Rite is a classical example of the concept of “ritual.”

Fr. Lang then turns to recent Catholic theological challenges to these concepts. I found this chapter particularly helpful since I doubt I could ever have forced myself to wade through the works of Karl Rahner or Schillebeeckx. For highly influential schools of conciliar and post-conciliar theology in fact deny that any separate category of the Sacred can exist after the Incarnation. Post-incarnation, according to these thinkers, the entire world is sacred. It’s the kind of idealistic sleight-of-hand in which “what was sacred before” becomes positively harmful. Indeed, it seems to me hard to distinguish these theologies from outright atheism. The links of this line of thought to (emphatically non-theistic) avant-garde aesthetic theories are also obvious. In any case, it is obvious that behind many of the so-called “liturgical abuses” stand philosophical and theological tendencies that need to be engaged and refuted.

There follows an intriguing “excursus” discussing the issues raised by televising liturgies.

Fr. Lang then applies the analysis developed thus far in three subsequent chapters dedicated to Sacred Architecture, Sacred Art and Sacred Music.

Regarding sacred architecture, the illustrations of recent churches in this book reveal most concretely that different universes of art exist within the Church today. And the champions of architectural modernism advance ideas not at all dissimilar to the theological views Fr. Lang has previously outlined. In contrast, Fr. Lang attempts to develop some minimum “principles” for Sacred Architecture. They are:

1. Verticality – which points to the transcendence of God;
2. Orientation (the church must have a sense of direction);
3. Thresholds must exist (The entrance to the church must clearly mark off the interior from the exterior world; the sanctuary and the body of the church should be clearly offset from each other); and
4. “Iconoclasm is not a Christian option” (quoting Cardinal Ratzinger) – a purely abstract art is inappropriate.

Those even remotely familiar with recent “official” Catholic architecture can judge for themselves the extent to which these principles apply today. As noted, this book helpfully provides some telling illustrations of the problem.

On Sacred Art, Fr. Lang shows us the crisis of an art from which the very concept of beauty has disappeared. And he concludes that beauty can only be recovered if the liturgy is restored.

On Sacred Music, Fr. Lang shows the disastrous state of religious music, caught between the “two millstones” of “puritanic functionalism” – in which the Church’s musical heritage is replaced by congregational singing in the name of “Active Participation”– and the “functionalism of accommodation” in which music derived from contemporary jazz and pop makes its way into the sanctuary. In this analysis, as so often elsewhere in Signs of the Holy One, Fr. Lang proceeds from ideas of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. We can only regret how little of his perceptive thought Pope Benedict XVI was able to put into practice in his papacy.

Signs of the Holy One is written in a clear yet scholarly style. Fr. Lang carefully analyzes in each case the relevant authority. But that authority is not limited to the Vatican II and the post–conciliar popes but encompasses earlier councils and papal pronouncements. The works of the 18th century Benedict XIV are especially remarkable. Furthermore, abundant references and citations to leading authors on the topics covered making this work a gold mine for further research. The authors cited include some, like Jean Clair and Martin Mosebach, who bring a much more impassioned and poetic tone to Fr. Lang’s calm text.

I might have wished at times for more concrete and more contemporaneous examples to illustrate what the author discusses. I am not sure, for example, how effective it is to critique Beuron art, Augustus Pugin’s advocacy of the Gothic, the playing of Verdi’s music in a church in Sicily in 1860 (as depicted in a 1962 movie) and Wagner’s Parsifal. These critiques invite debate (how, for example, is Parsifal “blasphemous”?) and don’t we have much more recent, more vivid examples before us – such as the Copacabana Beach Mass of Pope Francis or the Venice exhibits of Cardinal Ravasi?

Fr. Lang frankly concedes his disappointment on the failure of the ideas advocated by this book to progress during the papacy of Benedict XVI. Under the new regime will they remain as just the personal whims of the “pope emeritus”? Fr. Lang correctly points to the continuing and developing search for the sacred and the beautiful in liturgy among younger Catholics as a basis for hope. Yet mending the “torn threads of Catholic ritual” “is a work that will need patience and perseverance and will not be completed in our lifetime”: (p.155) Those engaged in that work, however, will require not just commitment and energy but also knowledge and understanding. In this regard, with Signs of the Holy One Fr. Lang has provided them with an indispensable handbook.

The Coup at Catholic University
(Ignatius Press, 2015)
By Peter M. Mitchell

Catholic University of America (“CUA”) is probably known to most of us as a certain educational institution in Washington for which the American Church still dares to take a scandalous annual collection nationwide each year. A kind critic might describe CUA as “wildly inconsistent;” a crueler one as “third-rate.” Like the nearby Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, it is a monument to American Catholic failure: an inspired initiative that fell woefully short in the execution. Yet, at one period in the late 1960’s, Catholic University became the focal point of conflict and change in the Church in America: a key stage of the transition from the Church of Spellman to that of the 1976 Call to Action conference. Fr. Peter Mitchell tells the story of these events from the initial “dissent” of Charles Curran to the complete capitulation of the board of the University and the seizure of effective control of the University by the progressive “dissenters”. All in the space of less than three years!

Fr. Mitchell takes us inside the action. We become privy to the consultations, discussions and private communications of the bishops and of the other main actors. A story that had been known to some of us “from the outside” – from such works as Msgr. George Kelly’s The Battle for the American Church – is now set forth in full detail. And strangely enough, it’s an interesting even gripping read. For the conflicts of the Conciliar Church that became manifest then have not been resolved at all – indeed they are more pressing than ever.

The blurb on the back of the book claims that it “suggests” the crisis of the 1960’s stems from the legalism and authoritarianism of the 1950’s. Now in fact The Coup at Catholic University does not spell out “root causes” that openly, preferring to let any such conclusions emerge from the narrative of the facts. But what it does reveal about the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church is devastating. For the administrators and bureaucrats who the Vatican had selected to be the “Fathers of the Faith” were hopelessly out of their depth when called to teach, make hard decisions and take stands unpopular with secular society.

This book tells an incredible story of epic episcopal failings. It starts with the initial confrontation of the board of directors of CUA (made up of bishops) with Fr. Charles Curran over his support of contraception – among his other disagreements with Catholic moral teaching. Yet Cardinal Krol – the leader of the Catholic University board – came up with the devious solution of simply not renewing Curran’s teaching contract without giving publicly any reasons. It was a scenario subsequently played out endlessly in the Church’s handling of clerical child abuse: problems would be swept under the rug in the hopes of avoiding “scandal.”

Of course in the Curran case this approach backfired, allowing Fr. Curran to pose as a martyr of academic freedom, rallying the media and the University to his side. The result was complete victory for Curran: the board abjectly reversed its decision. Subsequently, when members of the faculty dissented from Humanae Vitae, the board ended up by delegating its authority to a faculty committee – which naturally upheld the position of the dissenters in all respects. The board then accepted this conclusion – in effect, surrendering total control of the University to the dissenters.

This saga, however, is not just of historical interest. The recent experiences at the Vatican Synod on the family have given these events a whole new relevance. Of course the protagonist of recent events is not a young theology professor but an old Bishop of Rome – but the resemblances, as depicted in the media, are remarkable. For Curran was described as “humble … who drove an old car without a muffler.” (p. 64) He was supposed to be “easygoing, approachable, “ “concerned with the living God rather than stereotypes.”(p. 60) And there are more substantive parallels. According to Cardinal Krol:

He (Charles Curran) says he is not advocating in practice a norm “different from the prevailing norm.” He says as a confessor and guide he must uphold the present teaching of the Church. But before he completes this section, he states: “There are times when contraception might be necessary for an individual couple. I have counseled couples along these lines.”… Throughout the book Father Curran artfully jumps from one to a[nother]contrary position. (p. 35)

Caardinal Krol found this position to be “some form of situationism.” (p.35) But how different is it from the current statements of the German episcopate and of the recent Roman synod of bishops? And how different is the conduct of that synod of bishops from that of the CUA board in the late 1960’s?

The rebellion over Curran was initially fought under the banner of “academic freedom.” Yet the same “dissenters” – one Curran had been reinstated – moved successfully to force out of CUA those who had supported the CUA board of directors – with the concurrence of said board. We know from the student riots of that era – and the reenactment of these events in the last few months at Yale, Princeton and elsewhere by alleged “victims” of “racial insensitivity” – that “academic freedom” is the last thing these protestors want, then and now. Rather, what had happened in 1967-69 was the imposition of an outside ideology. This was indeed perceived by a minority at the time. Msgr. Eugene Kevane (a CUA dean) commented on a pro-dissenter “faculty working paper”:

This “obscure phrasing,” he said, made it possible to introduce a “secularized ideology . . . so that our Catholic University would actually lose the freedom to be itself.” . . . the American tradition of religious liberty recognized the right of a University to be committed to a particular religious identity as part of its exercise of freedom. To attempt to deny that identity in the name of an intolerant secularism was, said Kevane, inherently un-American. (p. 115)

(Msgr. Kevane was subsequently forced out.)

Finally, lurking in the background of all this was the Vatican of Pope Paul VI. Undoubtedly a factor in the reluctance of the CUA board to confront Fr. Curran squarely on the issue of contraception was the fact that Paul VI had convened a committee to study the issue – to which Fr. Curran adroitly alluded in defending of his actions. And when “dissent“ at CUA became general after Humane Vitae, Paul VI’s representative intervened with the board – in favor of the dissenters against papal authority.

Cardinal Garrone, prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Çatholic Education, wrote to Krol, urging him to prevail upon O’Boyle to avoid any further interference in the administration of CUA . . . Garrone’s letter indicated a clear desire on the part of the Holy See that the volatile situation on campus would calm down and that a certain stability and order would prevail at CUA and more generally within the Church in the entire United States. (pp. 240-41)

Thus, the cowardice of the CUA board finally received confirmation at the very highest level of authority.

The results of the battle at CUA, lost by the hierarchy almost without a fight, were catastrophic. So-called “dissent” achieved institutionalized dominance at Catholic higher education throughout the United States. Many years later, sanctions indeed were imposed upon Fr. Charles Curran – but by then it was far too little, too late. Predictably, the full adoption of American “academic freedom” by CUA and its “liberation” from the authority of its board of bishops have not at all raised the intellectual standing of this institution over the decades since 1969 – quite the contrary! Representative of many other institutes of Catholic higher eduction in the United States, CUA had abandoned its mission as a Catholic institution without attaining in return any secular distinction.

Living on Fire: The Life of L. Brent Bozell Jr.
By Daniel Kelly,
ISI Books, Wilmington, 2014

I have already written on this blog some notes on the history of Traditional Catholicism in this country. In that saga, no individual is of greater significance than Brent Bozell, the founding editor of Triumph magazine. For, from 1966 till its demise in 1975, Triumph was the voice of Catholic conservative opposition to the leftward avalanche in the Church and the country. Now the late Daniel Kelly has provided us with a new biography of this critical figure of the post-conciliar Church in the United States.

This is a much-needed work. Kelly, for the first time, gives us a coherent narrative of Bozell’s life. It is an amazing story. He worked with Bill Buckley (his brother in law) to found National Review for which he wrote extensively. He was the ghostwriter for Goldwater’s The Conscience of a Conservative – the single biggest success story in conservative publishing of that era -which helped launch Goldwater’s national political career. Later, he authored a respectable work on the Warren court.

Yet Brent Bozell was becoming disenchanted with the proto-“libertarian” doctrine of “mainstream” American Conservatism (although in that day the received opinion considered Buckley and his cohorts denizens of the far right). A period of residence in Spain in the early 1960’s had opened Bozell’s eyes to the still extant beauties of a Traditional Catholic society and culture. By 1966 he had split from the National Review circle, and had founded his own magazine – giving it a title deliberately calculated to enrage Catholic progressives, then and now: Triumph. After extraordinary vicissitudes the magazine collapsed in 1975 and Bozell descended into madness and alcoholism. Later, he partially recovered and ended his days in spiritual peace.

Kelly does a good job of “connecting the dots” of Bozell’s life, digging up a host of fascinating details and putting it all into a readable narrative. I could claim to be somewhat familiar with broad outline of this story yet I found many new and important facts. For example, I knew there had been a connection between some of the Triumph stalwarts and Christendom College, I didn’t know that that institution sprang directly from a Triumph summer program. Throughout the book, Kelly sets forth succinctly and clearly what Bozell, Buckley, etc. thought and wrote over the period covered by the biography – critical for what is primarily the history of an intellectual.

It is truly said de mortuis nil nisi bonum. Yet I have to report that, in my opinion, Living on Fire exhibits serious defects that prevent it from being more than a first essay on the subject. First, Kelly provides inadequate historical and intellectual context for the life and opinions of his protagonist. Living on Fire seems to presume familiarity with American history of the 1950’s through the 70’s as well as the details of the development American conservative movement. That can no longer be presumed of younger but interested readers. Moreover, failure to provide historical context tends to diminish the significance of Bozell’s Triumph years. For 1966-75 were years of the greatest social and intellectual change in America. It was a radical, public shift to the left in politics, culture and morality – opposed only in an incomplete way by the counterattack of Nixon and the “silent majority.” In the Church, there was the parallel conciliar revolution. Seen in this context, Bozell’s shift from the conservative focus on anti-communism and the defense of capitalism to the criticism and reform of culture looks remarkably prescient – even more so if historical developments since the 70s are also taken into account. The positions of Bozell, which in this book often appear as a series of strident ideological assertions, take on an entirely different and more favorable aspect in the historical setting of the craziness of the 1960’s in Church and society, .

Second, Kelly does not consistently provide critical evaluation of the positions of Bozell. Now Bozell was an intellectual – despite Kelly’s assertions, repeated several times in this book, that he could have attained high electoral office, Bozell’s vocation was that of a writer and editor in the fields of religion and politics. Essential to assessing such a man is judging whether the opinions he voiced were in fact correct. Kelly shares his opinions only here and there. Some are perceptive, others obtuse, such as his repeating uncritically contemporary descriptions of Bozell as “Anti-American.” However, from the author’s tone of detached irony – and his extremely favorable portrayal of William F. Buckley throughout this work – one gets the sense that, for Kelly, Triumph and all that it stands for was an aberration, a unfortunate departure from Bozell’s promising conservative career – perhaps motivated by rivalry with Buckley and even incipient mental problems.

Third, I am not totally persuaded by Kelly’s’ attempts to flesh out the personalities of Bozell (and of others covered in this book) and to provide psychological motivations for their opinions and actions. His narrative is too summary and disjointed to be totally convincing in this respect. For example, Bozell in 1962 suddenly moves his family to Spain. We are then informed for the first time that Trish, his wife, is an alcoholic – and that Bozell suffers from some kind of drinking problem as well. The book quotes letters written by Bozell on this tragic subject that are moving and eloquent in their language which stands out startlingly from Kelly’s surrounding gray prose. Then, upon the Bozell family’s return to America, the subject of alcoholism is dropped – only to be taken up again 14 years later when Brent Bozell succumbs to mental disorders. Was this something that afflicted both Brent and Trish only in moments of extreme stress? We do not know from this book. In another example, Thomas Molnar is depicted as a “voice of reason” in contrast of the “radicalism” of Bozell. That’s a very strange role for someone whose “anti-Americanism” exceeded anything Bozell put to paper. One longs to see the original interview notes of Kelly. (Molnar also is revealed to be a significant player at the foundation of Triumph yet then disappears – without explanation.)

What is to be said about Triumph? The apparently disdainful judgment of Kelly – and of American conservatism – is refuted by the very content and tenor of this book. Triumph offered the first critical reviews of the new mass and of the “liturgical renewal.” It forcefully advocated what were later called “pro-life “ positions years before Roe v. Wade. Above all it understood the unbridgeable and ever widening gap between the American establishment and the Catholic faith. It discerned very early on the processes that were gradually turning the United States in to a quasi-totalitarian progressive state. Bozell accomplished all this by gathering a team of gifted writers – a team that has never been duplicated since. And we should not underestimate the courage it took to criticize the Church establishment and the implementation of the Council. As one enraged reader wrote to the magazine:

“I hope your magazine will either never appear or very soon be forbidden to appear. How can grown-up intelligent Catholics be such an obstacle to the workings of the Holy Ghost?”

(The writer was Baroness Maria von Trapp of Sound of Music fame)

Yet the grand venture of Triumph failed. Living with Fire helps us identify some of the reasons. Especially after 1970, the editorial stance of the magazine became consistently more critical of the “American way of life.” That in my view was entirely appropriate. But at the same time Triumph increasingly opposed to American society a vision of Catholicism that verged on fantasy. The magazine that had been one of the most perceptive critics of the liturgical revolution became more and more an apologist of the papacy of Paul VI. The core of the Triumph staff had emerged from the conservative political movement; they would have needed need more liturgists, theologians and historians of the Church to understand what was going on. For the same destructive forces at work in the United States and that Triumph so eloquently denounced were also active in the Church. Bozell and his colleagues could never totally understand that. Instead, they engaged in an increasingly Quixotic effort to present the conflicted, crumbling Catholic Church of the 1970’s as the panacea for the social evils of the United States. Indeed, despite the talk of “Radicalism” and “Anti-Americanism” there was something eminently American in Triumph’s effort to make “the Catholic thing” a political program and to quickly create a ”Catholic culture” on these shores – something that had taken a thousand or more years in Europe.

Yet despite the limitations, Triumph was a great adventure and a great accomplishment. Kelly’s book – despite the reservations of its own author – makes that clear. For the issues that Buckley and Bozell addressed at National Review in the 1950’s and early 1960’s belong to another world and to an America that has ceased to exist. The issues addressed by Triumph are with us to this very day. Kelly’s book is good introduction to the subject – but I would refer all interested readers to the original texts of Triumph.

Poor Pope Benedict! Every day, it seems we hear more about his inadequacies and “failures.” He was a “renaissance prince,” he was remote, aloof, rigid, “intellectual,” interested only in propounding dogma and seeing “that the rules are followed.” .And now Rolling Stone declares Freddy Krueger to be his lookalike. What a contrast to Pope Francis! He is Jesus Christ, he is St Francis (Andrea Tornielli has already published the Fioretti of Bergoglio), he is Superman, a healer, merciful, caring, pragmatic and so on. Rumors of a Nobel peace prize already have surfaced. Pope Francis and his pals over the last year haven’t distanced themselves at all from this myth of a Bergoglian revolution breaking with the dark regime of his predecessor– at least not until Rolling Stone found that Benedict was best qualified to be a movie serial killer. But it’s a little too late for such objections now!

Among the first to try and assess the reality of Benedict’s pontificate is Alexander Kissler. His Papst im Widerspruch appeared in March 2013 – just after the abdication of Benedict! This work is not, however, a chronological history of Benedict’s reign. Rather, it is an exposition of selected issues or aspects of Benedict’s papacy, organized according to what Kissler thinks are the great themes: his travels, his actions regarding the FSSPX, his relationship with Germany, his encyclicals, his positions on the Jews, on ecology etc. This arrangement of the book is acceptable but does require some time to get used to. The book is clearly written and the author seems to have spent a lot of time considering some of Benedict’s words. I admit, though, that when Kissler writes that Bishop Williamson’s father was killed in Sonnenburg prison in 1944 – it was actually Archbishop Lefebvre’s father – it does create some worries…

Now Kissler concentrates very heavily on what Benedict wrote or said – as opposed to what he did. Only the action lifting the excommunication of the FSSPX bishops is thoroughly examined. And even here the emphasis is upon extensive citations of what Benedict said, what Fellay or Schmidberger said, what Merkel said – and especially what the German press said.

In this matter and elsewhere Kissler acts as an advocate for Benedict: defending him against the endless attacks from the German press – and from the “German Catholic Church.” Kissler seeks to prove that Benedict is not at all the authoritarian, anti-modern, reactionary, anti-Semitic and anti–ecumenical character the pope was made out to be in his own country. Indeed, this extreme vituperation is only comprehensible in the context of the poisonous, quasi-totalitarian intellectual and political culture of contemporary Germany. It is tragic to compare the respect the Poles had for their countryman on the papal throne compared with the consistently contemptuous and treasonous actions of the representatives of the German press and Church in regard to Benedict.

Yet, we have to ask: why were these negative forces so quickly and totally aligned against Benedict? And what of the long series of missteps: the Regensburg speech, the implementation of the lifting of the FSSPX excommunications, Vatileaks, the “pedophilia” scandals, etc.? The facts suggest that Benedict XVI did indeed pose a threat to various vested interests in the Church and in the civil society of the Western world. And they further lead us to the conclusion that Benedict’s inability to rule played a great role in exacerbating the conflicts which the attempted implementation of his principles would have provoked in any case.

This does not emerge clearly in Klssler’s work. In fact, it is amazing that the most salient feature of Benedict’s thought, as it was actually applied, even if in an incomplete way, during his papacy – the restoration to prominence of Catholic tradition – is given short shrift in this book. The full significance of the “hermeneutic of reform in continuity” is not considered; Summorum Pontificum is mentioned only as an adjunct to Benedict’s attempt to reintegrate the FSSPX; and the new organizational structure for former Anglicans established by Benedict is not discussed. Thus, Kissler does not give Benedict’s most epochal accomplishments the consideration they deserve. And Benedict’s initiatives regarding the FSSPX thus appear to be unmotivated and isolated acts of grace – instead of fitting into a coherent pattern. Nor do Benedict’s other, far less effective, actions as governor of the Church: his appointments, his management of the Maciel and pedophilia scandals, receive the attention I would have expected.

In fact, I feel that Kissler devotes too much of his book to Benedict at his least effective: his Wojtylian series of travels and the official presentations delivered during them. What kind of sense does it make to discourse about natural law – such as in his speech to the German parliament – in societies that are in the process of implementing homosexual marriage? Pope Ratzinger did have fondness for speaking as the “pope of all mankind” instead of the Pope of the Catholic Church – the resulting highly abstract and dechristianized statements did not, I submit, make much a lasting impression. Moreover, especially where Benedict had no immediate interest in the subject matter, he easily fell into the kind of platitudes that prevail in the Western European Church.

Kissler indeed does set out some of the more dramatic aspects of Benedict’s thought both before and during his pontificate: his sense of the eschatological, his understanding of the dramatic situation of the Church, his awareness of the role of evil and even of the devil. In such considerations Pope Benedict could express himself with poetic force. For Benedict – in contrast to most Catholic hierarchs – is a spiritual man; Kissler even calls him a mystic. And as the title of this book indicates he was a sign of contradiction – a man who understood that the role of a Christian must be that of a nonconformist.

Yet it must be acknowledged that this understanding starkly contrasts with Benedict’s apparent serene confidence in “reason” and the ability of Christian and non – Christian to work together. At times – such as in some of his addresses on his apostolic journeys – Benedict sounds more like a figure of the late 18th century Enlightenment in Germany that a Christian bishop. The thought of Ratzinger would thus appear to exhibit unresolved conflicts: on the one hand the sense of an apocalyptic conflict, on the other, a truly “Conciliar” confidence in the modern world.

Benedict also seemed to exhibit reluctance to deal with the concrete and specific. Yes, the Vatileaks scandal does ultimately spring from the “mystery of iniquity”, as Kissler writes, but much more immediate causes existed: Benedict’s poor choice of associates, his refusal to govern or discipline the curia, and the corruption of decades of mismanagement sand subversion.

The reader will find some valuable information in this book. Kissler provides a blow-by blow account of the Williamson affair – as seen from the German press. He interpolates here a lengthy and in many respects sympathetic description of the ordination of priests by the FSSPX at their seminary. The reader thereby gains a very vivid impression of the unbridgeable hostility between Catholic tradition and the “German Catholic Church,” the German government and German civil society.

What would our author think of developments so far in the reign of Francis? The Vatican now at times covertly, at times openly, adopts or tolerates many of the accusations Kissler is so anxious to defend Benedict against. Perhaps the author had a foreboding of all this – Kissler clearly has reservations regarding the wisdom of Benedict’s resignation.

Papst im Widerspruch may serve as the start of the evaluation of Benedict’s reign. It is clear, though, that the actions of a Pope, who was most active in the realm of the spiritual, the intellectual and also the liturgical,will only manifest their true effects in the coming decades or generations. Only in a subsequent generation can the history of a pontificate such as Benedict’s be written.

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